11 killed, 5 injured in suicide attack in Kohat

Islamabad, Dec 17 (UNI) At least 11 people were killed and five others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Kohat in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier Province today at 1230 pm (local time), two days after President Pervez Musharraf lifted the state of emergency.

The bomber blew himself up close to the Army Public School and College, Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The deceased were security personnel and were coming out of the training centre when the suicide bomber blew himself up.

The injured were admitted to CMH Kohat where their condition is stated to be serious.

Chief Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told the state-run Pakistan Television that all the players were coming back from a match when they were attacked in the Kohat town, known as a high security zone because it houses sensitive military buildings and installations.

''It was a suicide attack, which killed these armymen,'' Maj Gen Arshad said, adding that the army conrdoned off the area and launched investigations.

General (retd) Musharraf, who had imposed emergency on November 3, citing growing Islamic militancy in the troubled northwest as well as the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, lifted it on December 15, claiming that the increasing wave of terrorism had been checked.

More than 400 people have been killed in series of suicide attacks and bomb explosions in the restive north after the army's operation against Islamabad's radical Lal Masjid in July.

UNI